tvstationsfandomcom-20200214-history
WYCN-CD
WYCN-CD (channel 15) is an NBC owned-and-operated Class A low-powered television station serving Boston, Massachusetts, United States that is licensed to Nashua, New Hampshire. The station is owned by the NBC Owned Television Stations subsidiary of the NBCUniversal division of Comcast, and is a sister station to low-powered NBC owned-and-operated WBTS-LD and Telemundo owned-and-operated WNEU. The three stations share studio facilities with sister regional cable news channel New England Cable News (NECN) on Wells Avenue in Newton; WYCN shares transmitter facilities with Boston-licensed full-power PBS member station WGBX-TV (channel 44) located in Needham through a channel sharing arrangement. WYCN-CD operates as a full-power satellite station of sister WBTS-LD (channel 8) in order to ensure complete reception across the Boston area. History The station signed on in 1988 as W13BG on channel 13 in Nashua. It changed its call letters to WYCN-LP on April 8, 1996. Originally owned by Center Broadcasting Corporation of New Hampshire, the station aired local community programming for the Nashua era, with FamilyNet airing for most of the day. Its analog-era tower was located on the Rivier University campus between two above-ground reservoirs and Brassard Hall, with studios located in Memorial Hall on the same campus. WYCN-LP was nearly dropped by Harron Cable on its Nashua-area systems in October 1999 to accommodate a must-carry request by WMFP (channel 62), a move that could have led to the closure of channel 13 even though its carriage on MediaOne in Nashua itself was not affected. Its carriage was ultimately continued by Adelphia Communications following its purchase of Harron, though the station was dropped for a time in 2000 after an additional must-carry request, from WYDN (channel 48), while Adelphia rebuilt the systems. WYCN-LP, along with three co-owned translators in Nashua, Manchester, and Concord, was sold by Center Broadcasting Corporation of New Hampshire to New Hampshire 1 Network, a company controlled by William H. Binnie, in 2010. The deal was completed January 3, 2012; in the meantime, Binnie would also acquire WBIN-TV (channel 50, now WWJE-DT) in Derry. As a result of the sale, much of WYCN's community programming, including aldermatic debates, was discontinued. In December 2012, the station's studios moved from Rivier University to a location shared with sister station WFNQ (106.3 FM). New Hampshire 1 Network filed to sell WYCN-LP to OTA Broadcasting, a company controlled by Michael Dell's MSD Capital, on January 14, 2013; the three translators were not included in the deal, and began to simulcast WBIN-TV. Operation of WYCN continued to be handled by New Hampshire 1. At the time of the sale, WYCN was affiliated with My Family TV. The FCC approved the sale on March 22, and it was completed on May 20. WYCN-LP resumed producing local programming soon after the sale to OTA Broadcasting; however, in June 2013, Comcast (successor to both Harron/Adelphia and MediaOne) informed the station that it would be dropped from its lineup as of August 15 due to the earlier cessation of local programming, as well as its limited broadcast reach and continued analog broadcasting (even though WYCN had a construction permit to convert to digital operations and increase its broadcast range). Comcast subsequently pushed back the date of the removal to September 3, despite protests from viewers, politicians, and Nashua's public access station. Due to its low power, WYCN's analog signal reached only portions of Nashua, its city of license. In contrast, its digital signal was expected to reach Manchester and Boston. The digital facility was planned to sign on by December 2013, but was not licensed by the Federal Communications Commission until October 23, 2014. Their digital transmitter was located 625 feet (0.191 km) off Trigate Road in rural Hudson, southeast of Nashua. Spectrum reallocation, sale to NBC WYCN-CD sold its frequency rights as part of the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auction for $80.4 million; in the auction, the station indicated that it would continue operations through a post-auction channel sharing agreement. On October 18, 2017, OTA Broadcasting entered into a channel sharing agreement with WGBX-TV (channel 44); under the terms of the agreement, channel sharing operations could not begin until the WYCN-CD license was acquired by NBCUniversal. NBC agreed to purchase WYCN-CD the same day. In December 2017, the station announced on its website that it would "cease broadcasting on its current frequency on January 16, 2018 and begin broadcasting NBC Boston on a new frequency." As WYCN's signal overlaps with WGME-TV in Portland, Maine, which also uses virtual channel 13, WYCN began using virtual channel 15 following the commencement of channel sharing, as WGME's post-auction physical channel will be 15 (WGME's pre-auction channel, 38, is not available to WYCN as virtual channel 38 is assigned to CBS-owned MyNetworkTV affiliate WSBK-TV). The sale to NBC was completed on January 18, 2018; the transition to the Needham tower took place the same day. At the time of transition, it was affiliated with Heroes & Icons, duplicating the same affiliation held by WSBK-DT2 in the market; that station continues to carry H&I, though the network lost the low channel number cable carriage it held with WYCN-CD. Category:NBC affiliated stations Category:Channel 15 Category:Nashua Category:New Hampshire Category:Television channels and stations established in 1988 Category:1988 Category:Former FamilyNet Affiliates Category:Former The Family Channel Affiliates Category:Former TouchVision affiliates Category:Former TheCoolTV Affiliates Category:Former Heroes & Icons Affiliates Category:NBCUniversal Category:UHF Category:NBC New England